As a matter of principle, I am not paying a $2 "processing fee" to stop people from sending garbage to my mailbox.
Also, the permanent credit card offer opt-out requires me to print and send a letter from each address I live at. This is clearly designed to be as annoying as possible so nobody does it.
1.6 cents per month seems pretty reasonable to solve what would otherwise just consume some of your time. An ideal world, there wouldn't be a processing fee but we don't live in that world.
Aa far as the credit card opt out, you can also freeze your credit and I believe that has a similar impact since no one can make unauthorized inquiries.
I shred those bulk mailings, but I was referencing the many Junk but non-bulk class letters I receive. It makes no sense to write return to sender on a bulk-mailer.
While much Junk mail is sent via bulk rate, Junk in this context refers to the content not to the mailing class of bulk.
I’ve done both and it was worth it. Highly recommended.
One can also consider a mail processor if you’re nomadic or on the road often; you give out that address, pay $10-$20/month for the service, and they dispose of the junk mail and scan in only paper mail of importance for review.
Edit: will return with mail processor recommendations when not mobile.
Not the OP, but I've been using St. Brendan's Isle[1] for about a year and it's been great. I've also heard good things about My RV Mail[2]. Both are in Florida, I think mostly because it's a popular state for full-time RVers to establish as their domicile -- no income tax, low vehicle licensing fees, etc. I looked at bigger name services like Anytime Mailbox and Earthclass Mail, but found a lot of complaints about reliability, hidden fees, etc. in the reviews. Many of these services contract with local businesses (like convenience stores and independent shipping shops) to actually receive your mail, so your experience could be great or terrible depending on the address you choose. St. Brendan's Isle and My RV Mail both handle all mail in-house.
That is the one I recommend for personal mail and use, as you can establish domicile with them as you mention. Also, their address doesn’t throw any flags with brokerages and other financial services providers as a commercial mail processor.
A $1 authorized charge would work for a little bit of "real person here" verification, but I'd imagine the $2 is to discourage auto-filling an entire town's worth of people via a script; all you'd need is, say, a voter registration list to get the necessary info of name and address.
I get shit loads of junk mail at my second address, which is not the billing address for my credit cards. They have to have a way to deal with that too.
Under the hood, it's a credit card; you'll get a credit line much larger than the $2. How it impacts your credit depends quite a bit on how many other accounts you have, and for how long; a thin, short credit file will be more heavily impacted by a new account.
I was looking for this website again for junk mail. It looked so sketchy the first time, but I’m gonna bite the bullet and see if this saves me time over the next ten years from having to throw away junk mail. $2 is worth the experiment.
I did this many years ago. 99.9% of my mail is still junk, just junk where I have some sort of weaselly pre-existing relationship with the company sending mail. ("You donated money to us! Can we have some more!? We spent it all on this marketing campaign and now it's gone!")
This used to happen to me (in Montreal, so perhaps not the same as your experience) with SPCA. I emailed them and told them very politely that I donate on my own schedule, that I appreciate the work they do, and to please stop wasting their (my) money asking me for more donations. They replied thanking me for the e-mail and saying that they had removed me from their mailing list.
Any online order or phone order is an automatic opt-in to their catalog. I used to let my wife handle her own mail and I handled mine, but it got so out of control that I saved all her garbage for 1 month and showed it to her, and now I'm allowed to opt her out of everything. Took a few months but we finally got it down to the bare minimum. It's nice. If I miss a day or two of checking my mailbox, it doesn't overflow!
Do you still get the traditional junk mail though? I heard this trick specifically from a postman at USPS and decided to act again given I found the link again.
Every time I check my mail (which is about once a week), I have about of pound of paper to recycle. These are all things like catalogs from places I've ordered, charities I've donated to, "you used your security key to log into Vanguard!", and things like this. It's all junk to me. I shop online, so don't need a paper catalog. I'm well aware of the charities I donate to and have a recurring donation setup. I was there when I logged in with my security key.
But yeah, pre-approved credit card offers are gone, which is nice.
I've done this and it makes a big difference, but I still get a lot of junk from local businesses. Either those businesses are not part of the DMA, or they are ignoring the opt-out list. I'm not sure what to do about it.
I've done this as well. Another issue I've noticed is that when a certain item is set to go to "all" addresses, the mail carrier will simply give one to everyone until they run out. This is probably right most of the time. But I would consistently get junk mail for my neighbor with an apartment number one higher than mine.
I recall reporting this to the USPS multiple times without any effect. The only thing that helped was putting a note inside my mailbox to check for my neighbor's mail.
I just Google the business and email them. Usually they're able to take me off their mailing list.
Also as I recall, there was a coupon mailer that did not participate in the DMA. The flyers show up with branding from Vericast/Save/Valassis. The opt out for them is here: https://www.save.com/mailing/delivery-options
Similarly I recently moved houses and got a ton of catalogs to the former owner. It was a PITA to get sorted out, but after a couple months of diligent removal requests my mail is mostly stuff I care about.
I wish there was some equivalent of credit card chargebacks for USPS bulk mail. If I mark the mailpiece as being to someone not at the address, the USPS would bill the company for the failed delivery. (Also the "Or Current Resident" loophole is ridiculous.)
Then this would be the organization's problem to keep their own lists up to date. I realize this is probably infeasible but it would be nice.
From what I understand, local businesses can make an arrangement to send out mass mailers at a bulk price with their local post office. Maybe you see it as junk but I can see why being aware of whats available as far as the local economy (while helping keep the post office afloat) may make those mass mailers (assuming I’m making the right connections) “not junk.” Jmo though
Local businesses just give the post a bunch of shit to drop at every address. Your and my post person doesn’t give a shit about our opt outs. They’ll deliver this to everyone. I’ve tried man. I’ve lost hope at this point.
> but I still get a lot of junk from local businesses
> I'm not sure what to do about it.
What I found to be particularly effective when dealing with spam from local businesses is to contact them directly and request that your information is deleted, while also posting that they engage in unscrupulous practices like sending junk mail on public review sites like Yelp and Google Reviews, and then finally filing a BBB complaint directly against the business.
A lot of businesses these days aren't registered with BBB, which makes them ineffectual. That's more of a past thing, as I'm finding out. Mostly older businesses, or businesses run by older people are the ones participating.
The post office literally provides a service to advertisers that you can't opt out of. If it is addressed to Current Resident or something similar, then it is most likely USPS Every Door Direct Mail. There is no opt-out.
Honestly, it used to be far more of an issue when going away for more than one or two weeks at some times of the year resulted in a mailbox full of stuff--meaning you really had to get your mail held. These days I find far fewer catalogs--and certainly thick catalogs--get sent.
I did get a larger mailbox, mostly for packages. And I still get a fairly high junk to organizations I do business with to actually important mail ratio. But I can mostly ignore my mailbox for a week at a time easily.
I've done this, but most of the junk mail I get is from previous residents of my home, even though I've lived at my present address for over 3 years now. I've called some of the frequent mailers and had some success. Others have impossible to find contact info.
I've talked to my letter carriers, and it will get better for a few weeks and then be back to normal.
I'd say I get 3x the mail for previous resident than I do for myself. It's frustrating. Would be great if USPS just had a form I could fill out that automatically stopped delivery for certain names (and gave that info back to the mailers so they could stop generating the waste).
Yes but it also adds an entry to a mail list update dataset that USPS sends out. I worked at a company that had a magazine and every month USPS would send a CD with an updater. I never looked into how the technology worked but it allowed a sender to auto update their database to the new address.
> The person who prepares this form states that he or she is the person, executor, guardian, authorized officer, or agent of the person for whom mail would be forwarded under this order. Anyone submitting false or inaccurate information on this form is subject to punishment by fine or imprisonment or both under Sections 2, 1001, 1702, and 1708 of Title 18, United States Code.
> You can decide what types of mail you do and don’t want from marketers. Register at the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) consumer website DMAchoice.org, and choose what catalogs, magazine offers, and other mail you want to get. You’ll have to pay a $2 processing fee, and your registration will last for 10 years.
Is it just me, or is it insanely fucked up that in order to reduce the amount of junk mail you have to 1) first provide your information to yet another third-party site, and 2) pay money.
That's placing an awful lot of faith in this third-party website doing what it is intended to do, as opposed to other possibilities such as it not doing much of anything at all, or worse yet, exposing your data at some point.
Instead, my approach whenever I receive junkmail is:
1) I write to the sender to request that all of my information be removed from their databases and that I did not consent to receiving any information from them.
First, thank you. I’m free riding in the positive pressure you’ve exerted.
Does it work for you? Do they stop, and is it worth the time?
Also, do you go through all four steps at the “first offense”? Rightly or not it’s considered business as usual to blanket a geographical area on occasion, so there are only a few places which are constant enough I’d actually consider myself vengeful instead of annoyed.
> Does it work for you? Do they stop, and is it worth the time?
Actually, surprisingly yes! After doing the above for several years, I now get virtually zero junk mail (according to my spreadsheet, I've only received three pieces of junk mail so far this year).
And yes, I do it on the 'first offense' to nip it in the bud as soon as it starts.
Most of the functioning of the US government at every level (city/state/federal) relies on private third parties doing the heavy lifting. In some cases it is visible to you up front (like this one), otherwise it is just happening behind the scenes. A blanket "I don't trust third parties" stance means you have to live a completely self sustained lifestyle off the grid.
Except this is not a blanket stance, but a very specific stance against the specific third-party in question: dmachoice.org, which states that they may use information they collect about you for digital advertising:
> Information gathered by cookies or similar technologies may be used for our business purposes such as analytics, research, digital advertising, and operational purposes. [1]
Ah, the boomer/"greatest-generation" version of something like Angie's List. I used to believe in BBB too, until I realized it was just another middle-layer scam, sitting between businesses and consumers, with time-varying ideas over who should pay to either (a) get information (b) control information.
The International Association of Better Business Bureaus is listed as a 501(c)(6) and their EIN is 83-3454617 but they don't provide any links to their financial reports or required filings on their website and trying to search for their Form 990 comes up blank, even on the IRS website. But I'm sure they're totally legit...
All the shady behavior that Yelp has been accused of, but largely never caught doing, various state level BBB's have been caught doing.
It beggars belief that Yelp has gotten away with it. I have heard from 4-5 restaurant owners the same story: it costs $300 to hide bad reviews. Those that don't pay start getting more bad reviews.
> It beggars belief that Yelp has gotten away with it. I have heard from 4-5 restaurant owners the same story: it costs $300 to hide bad reviews.
Is there documented evidence of this available? Emails with DKIM signatures, recorded conversations with representatives who can be confirmed to work for Yelp, official Yelp correspondence, etc? Basically anything that can actually make a solid case instead of just anecdotal evidence.
FTC: pay this company no one but us know about $2 and it will fix the problem for 10 years in no legally binding way and with no government oversight penalty or enforcement.
I had a PO box that I kept for my side business. Never really used it other than to have it as my address, but I received so much junk. I had to go in and clean it out every week. If I didn’t, I’d get notices from the post office. I finally asked them stop putting in all the junk in my mail box. They said, I’d have to call them individually to stop.
That’s when I realized, the post office actually makes money from doing this so they have zero incentive to stop.
Pick up the phone and then immediately hang up. That will often times tell them that the line is dead.
Pick up the phone and ask them to put you on a do not call list. Surprisingly that works for some of these.
Pick up the phone and fuck with them. “911, what’s the location of your emergency” is my standard greeting no matter who calls me. Or tell them you are a Jehovah’s witness and as them if they’ve heard the good word.
Tell them this is a cell phone and your state allows up to $$$ per phone call if you take them to small claims. This usually works well with asking their full name and the name of their company and the name of their supervisor.
You could start by giving them more realistic car details.
I engaged them one time when I got really annoyed. Gave fake car details (but realistic), call back number of local McDonalds, and then kept asking for details about the coverage. I eventually declined it and the sales agent got super pushy with scare tactics so I hung up.
> Caller ID authentication is critical for protecting consumers against spoofed robocalls where scammers mask their identity, harass consumers, and seek to defraud vulnerable communities. Caller ID authentication, based on so-called STIR/SHAKEN standards, provides a common information sharing language between networks to verify caller ID information which can be used by robocall blocking tools, FCC investigators, and by consumers trying to judge if an incoming call is likely legitimate or not. On June 30, 2021, the FCC confirmed that all the largest voice service providers had implemented these standards in the IP sections of their networks, in accordance with the FCC’s deadline. While some small carriers were afforded an extension of this deadline, Chairwoman Rosenworcel shortened the amount of time afforded to a subset of small voice service providers based on evidence that they were originating an increasing quantity of illegal robocalls. Thus, small voice service providers that are not facilities-based must implement STIR/SHAKEN in the IP portions of their networks no later than June 30, 2022.
That "small voice service providers" loophole is what's currently abused; a few of them have found being lax on spam detection means they can rake in fees for a while.
> Every answered scam robocall pays money to those providers, as well as to every telephone service provider in the call path. Even when these providers are told—sometimes repeatedly—that they are transmitting fraudulent calls, they keep doing it, because they are making money from these calls.
The law could be amended so that your telephone company has to provide you with the true originator info. Then people could collectively block organizations adblock-style, or even block anything outside the US and be done with it.
For mobile turn on do not disturb with only contacts or favorite contacts allowed to breaktrough. Aggressively respond with a stop word to incoming texts - that eventually clears your number out of marketing databases.
If the USPS offered a subscription service where they throw trash away instead of stuffing it into my mailbox, I would pay it with a smile on my face. I don't even care that it probably meets the definition of a protection racket.
While one can increasingly do a lot of things electronically, there are certainly documents that governments send that expect a valid mailing address. And may have legal consequences if you don't respond to them. I receive a number of local bills for example that I'm not aware of an electronic option.
You cannot run an online business relying on location services (e.g. Google My Business) without a mailing address to send a verification post card. Many states also require a mailing address to send a driver license. Many countries require a mail address for an online national id (e.g. https://www.realme.govt.nz/ in New Zealand).
In a time before electronic bank statements, I had a long back and forth with my bank trying to put a stop to receiving any or all of my accounts' paper statements and eventually just claimed that I moved out and no longer had an active address to update my accounts to.
They threatened to close all of my existing bank accounts if I couldn't provide a valid mailing address, and then made me verify it when I gave them the same address they already had.
Whether it should be the case or not, it's hard in the US not to have a legit residential address--and workarounds not involving "living" with someone you don't may or may not work. It doesn't help that state residency actually matters for reasons of taxes and ID.
I’d rather pay very slightly higher taxes to subsidize mail if necessary rather than having the USPS be self-sufficient as a spam expediting services for businesses.
I'm with you. Ignoring the inconvenience of sorting through junk mail every day, just thinking about the energy required to move all that trash to people's mailboxes, only to then be thrown in the trash and moved to a landfill, makes me itchy.
Suppose I move and have a new address. Is there any way to stop new mail? Catalogs are easy enough to stop. I'm thinking things like political mailers. It's almost like you need to keep your name out of public records (DMV, voter registration, property title) to avoid them.
My post person wrote “you can’t just decline mail” and dropped it back in my mailbox. I did write “return to sender” on it. I even tried writing “return to sender. Declined by receiver”.
I wrote to the postmaster general. Nothing came of it.
My solution is like said above: return it to sender. If your post person is trying to keep it your problem, make it USPS' problem: when returning to sender put it in a postbox that your post person can't gate-keep.
I've personally had pretty good success with this, albeit it does require consistent effort for a while.
If they have a personal (outgoing) mailbox that they are putting just the one piece of mail into, the mail person can skim over it, see the marker, and make decisions.
If it's a post box that is filled with a bunch of people's outgoing mail, no postal worker is going to read over it that way. Further, if you've blacked out the 'to' address with a marker (as I do), and written 'Return to Sender', they then are faced with either returning it to sender...or treating it as a dead letter that is undeliverable. They won't do the latter if there is a sender they can return it to, ergo...back it goes.
I’ve done all of this multiple times. It got better for a couple of months and then started again. The same senders. Real estate agents, coupons, houseware ads… I’ve even written “return to sender” and my post person wrote “you can’t just decline mail” and dropped it back in my mailbox.
“Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), Sect. 604.8.1.2 and Sect. 507.1.8.2 provide two instances where mail can be refused when it is offered for delivery, or, after delivery. You may mark “Refused” and return it unopened within a reasonable time.”
I tried getting petty and submitting complaints to Postmaster General. Eventually they told me if I kept refusing mail, especially the Direct Mail that advertisers use (to Current Resident), they just wouldn't deliver my mail anymore.
On HN, we generally prefer comments that aren't just jokes. I certainly like that about HN, I don't want HN to turn into Slashdot or into a typical subreddit. Because of HN's culture, sometimes a joke can be mistaken for a serious comment since we aren't expecting jokes.
I am part of "we" and I disagree. Clearly someone was confused at the post but given the upvotes, it was understood. The response, clarifying that it was a joke on my part, was poorly received. Perhaps the correct characterization is that the realization by some users that they didn't get the joke were subsequently more inclined to downvote due to not getting it, or that the meta post acknowledging it was a joke was off comment (but still relevant in the context of the aforementioned subthread) than those that got it, upvoted it and moved on.
If you haven't seen other jokes on HN then consider the possibility that maybe you are overly aggressive in filtering out the human element from this collections of comments, posts & links and are markedly worse off for doing so.
Other than making a bit of a mess, glitter is harmless. I really don’t think that qualifies as terrorism. Though some days, the sheer volume of junk Mail makes me think a hive of rabid bees would be a better response.
Because the company has to pay for the return postage but they get no benefit from it. It wastes their time. Kinda like putting the phone down when a telemarketer calls, rather than hanging up.
won't that also waste energy shipping a brick? I'd say don't do that, just return an empty envelope which is light and won't increase fuel/energy consumption.
> 1.3.8 Improper Use of Labels and Misuse of BRM Cards and Envelopes
> Improper use of BRM labels or misuse of BRM cards or envelopes should be handled as follows:
> When a BRM label is improperly used or a BRM card or envelope is misused as a label to return an unsealed item such as a brick, two-by-four, or similar item, the Postal Service may treat the item as waste to be disposed of at the discretion of the Post Office.
> When a BRM card or envelope is misused and affixed to a sealed item, the permit holder will be responsible for payment of the applicable Retail postage and per piece fee.
I think this is saying, "Attach it to a box with a brick in it." But neither do I think your local postal worker would be terribly amused.
Just send them their crap back with a "Please remove me from your list!" scrawled across the response. It does actually work, eventually...
I don't understand why they allow affixing an envelope to another item, as that's clearly abuse... but since they spell it out so explicitly, I have a hard time reading it as anything else than "attach it to a box with a brick in it".
After my mom passed I had all her mail forwarded to my house. She donated to a couple of charities, but they all sell their mailing lists to each other so there was so.much.charity.beg.crap with the little trinkets. And a lot of political donation stuff. The charities were pretty all right, honestly. I told them she was deceased and some even offered condolences and took her off. The political stuff, if there was a prepaid envelope inside I would return it with "deceased, pls remove" written on whatever silly survey they enclosed. So they would have to pay a small amount each time I had to tell them to remove her. That took about 2.5 years, but I no longer get anything.
At least in my area, I have noticed that my carrier has a stack of bulk mail that she grabs and sticks with each person's mail as she puts it in the mailbox. I imagine it would make her job significantly harder if she had to consult a list for each address. Most likely, it would require additional steps at the mail office.
This is called EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) and it's impossible to opt out of it. It's super annoying.
You used to be able to opt-out, but not anymore:
1) opt out with the DMA (note: there used to be an opt-out form at http://www.dmachoice.org/eddm but it no longer exists)
2) each local advertiser has to download the list for your area of opted-out addresses and print them on a facing slip before handing their bulk flyers over to the USPS
3) the USPS has to pass that on to the mail carrier
4) mail carrier has to check the list before putting the (unaddressed) flyers in each mailbox
So many points of failure that you just know it was designed so that the opt-out would not be honored. Then they stopped pretending entirely by removing the form to opt-out a few years ago.
The way this is handled elsewhere is putting a "no ads" sticker on your mailbox. The mailman then skips those mailboxes when delivering unaddressed spam.
I don't care much about junk mail in envelopes. I don't get that much, and it's easy to toss.
What I do care about are those !@#$%^&* newsprint bulk ads that I get every few days.
I have allergies, and I play harmonica, so my hands are often close to my face.
If I just touch that stack of newsprint long enough to toss it in the recycle bin, my hands stink after that. I have to use a combination of soap and isopropyl to get even a fraction of the smell out.
I realize that the USPS makes money delivering those newsprint ads. Whatever they make, I would gladly pay twice that or more to never get one again.
Does anyone know if the DMAchoice thing would stop the newsprint ads? I have a feeling it wouldn't, but would be delighted to be wrong about this.
I don’t see the point of giving up more personal privacy, just to beg some org that we have no control, for some mercy that they may take back anytime they want.
Are we encouraging them to send us more junk whatever, and then charge us more for their spareness? Is there really end of this game, if the rule is in their hands?
I wish there were a way to list all previous inhabitants of my apartment address who still get mail sent here and somehow tell USPS "no, they no longer live here". I routinely, in both of my previous apartments, receive(d) mail for at least 3-5 people who lived here before me. Many of them important documents, like from the DMV. Yes I know I can "mark" them with a pen/sharpie as having moved, but I don't always bring a pen to my mailbox with me to do that with. There must be an easier way.
I take the effort of marking them "return to sender" and throwing them in a mailbox for outbound mail. I don't know if they actually get sent back, but my hope is that if the important mail gets sent back the org that sent it will try and find their new address.
I've been tempted to buy a rubber stamp with "return to sender" or "not at this address" or whatever. I don't relish the thought of spending money to deal with other people's problems, though.
In any case after a few years I just toss their mail in the trash, junk or otherwise. If they don't care to file change of address forms then I don't care either. I don't think this is technically legal, though.
I occasionally receive mail addressed to my mother, who not only does not live with me, but has never even been to the state I currently live in. I assumed this was a chain of horribly mishandled mail forwarding requests the n times I've moved since I last lived with her ~10 years ago.
Recently I got one for my brother, who moved out a couple of years before I did.
Doesn't matter if you mark that mail "return to sender"/"addressee unknown"/"does not live here", or if you report it to the USPS, or anything else you do. They just ignore you and continue to send it anyhow. (At least that's been my personal experience with this exact issue.)
Call the post office. They will typically ask you to put your last name on the inside of your box and then they will tell the carrier to only deliver mail with your name (or ‘Current Resident’ obviously). If you’re lucky, your carrier is nice and respects that immediately. If you’re not lucky, you may have to call the post office every day for a month and complain like I did until they get the point. Eventually that kind of mail stopped.
I’m not sure what they do with all that mail that’s not addressed to me but I don’t really care. The point is I don’t have to see it.
This, along with the other tips in these comments (such as calling customer support lines and requesting removals) means I’m down to literally about one piece of junk mail per month these days.
At least for this current apartment, my last name has already been on a sticky-note attached to the door since I moved in. Guessing the friendly mailman did it. Yet that hasn't stopped the deluge of junk not addressed to me finding its way there (I don't blame the mailman, he's a really cool guy and probably just can't do much about it).
Any piece of mail marked "Current Resident" gets deposited directly to the trash, so if it doesn't specifically have my name on it, don't waste energy bringing it to me.
We get several hand-addressed Christmas cards for people who haven't lived at our address for at least 22 years. I always write "RTS/no longer at this address" but they keep coming.
Apparently there is such a thing as an “employee generated change of address” that can be used to return mail to the sender through the automatic forwarding system.
For rural routes the carrier is supposed to put a card requesting the names of addresses when someone news moves in. I’m not sure what they do with this info but I think they can potentially do something with mail not addressed to your while casing their mail.
I overheard someone being told to put a card in the box about the issue and if that didn’t work to come back and they would enter a COA. But my own post office didn’t seem to know that option and just said to tape a paper on the box door saying “only deliver for X.”
“Sharing your Social Security number and date of birth is optional, but the website says that giving this information can help them ensure that they can successfully process your request. It says the information you give is confidential and will be used only to process your request to opt out.”
Years ago I completed the permanent opt-out for everyone in my household (needing to mail in a paper form is shameful). However, very few unsolicited junk mails since. For any that get through I call that company's support line and request removal. Works ~90% of the time.
One cool free feature the USPS does offer is Informed Delivery [0]:
Every morning around 7am I get an email from the postal service with scanned images of all the mail (face of the envelope) I'm receiving that day.
I have mixed feelings about unformed delivery as I don’t think government should have scanned copies of all the mail you get. It’s as personal as when we decided that your video rental history was.
They definitely X-ray parcels, for security. Shortly after 9/11, I remember a local post office failing to detect explosives and it getting reported on; this was notable for two reasons:
- one of the hijackers had received a knife through the mail, and it had been processed through that office, so there was extra scrutiny at the time
- a few years prior, that office processed and delivered a package the Unabomber sent that killed someone
Yes, the USPS started scanning packages and letters since the great Anthrax scares. This is just a productization of an already widespread, in-use technology.
The majority of mail screening these days is to find illegal drugs. However, given that so many drugs get through, it seems they only x-ray a small subset.
The USPS has no choice given the purposeful malignant accounting of their pension fund. Instilled to privatize the USPS. Watch as mail in voting becomes a thing, that rancor is even more amplified
The USPS has had these advertising agreements to monetize your data stemming back from the 1990s when they formed an alliance with Pitney Bowes, which was sold to Imagitas, then acquired by MYMOVE, subsidiary of Red Ventures, the scummy data collection marketing giant.
I think I'd argue that the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 is to blame[0]. In short, postal workers prior to this law were not allowed to engage in collective bargaining. They went on strike to protest this, and this bill, in response, permitted mail employees to organize. In exchange, however, the US Post Office Department, which was formerly directed a cabinet position, was abolished and replaced with a corporation-like independent agency (the USPS as we now know it).
The USPS is expected to produce almost all of its own funds and has had most of its pre-1970 subsidies cut back or eliminated. At the same time, the prices it charges are still set by the federal government (specifically by the Postal Regulatory Commission, appointed by the President), meaning it can't truly set rates that allow it to be profitable[1]. The effect of all this essentially means it's forced to try and generate revenue elsewhere, like through these ads.
I don't think promoting revenue this way is necessarily bad. I'd much prefer this then the cost of postage going up which mandates everyone to contribute to the USPS operating expenses rather than those who choose to purchase products through their ads under their own volition.
AusPost seems to offer something like Informed Delivery for post office boxes, but not for residential addresses. I receive so little addressed (non-parcel) mail, this feature alone almost makes it worth getting a PO box, just so I don't have to remember to check my mail box for the once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence of it containing a posted letter.
I was just wondering whether AusPost offered something similar... it's a shame to hear it's not for residential addresses.
Almost all of my mail is deliveries of freight from online purchases, so I make habitual use of the locker box and post office collection services. I find them very useful, but unfortunataely for the plain old mail I still have to remember to check the box once every couple of weeks.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadAlso, the permanent credit card offer opt-out requires me to print and send a letter from each address I live at. This is clearly designed to be as annoying as possible so nobody does it.
Aa far as the credit card opt out, you can also freeze your credit and I believe that has a similar impact since no one can make unauthorized inquiries.
If you make it cost too much to send to you, they stop on their own.
It takes about 5-7 months
I shred those bulk mailings, but I was referencing the many Junk but non-bulk class letters I receive. It makes no sense to write return to sender on a bulk-mailer.
While much Junk mail is sent via bulk rate, Junk in this context refers to the content not to the mailing class of bulk.
One can also consider a mail processor if you’re nomadic or on the road often; you give out that address, pay $10-$20/month for the service, and they dispose of the junk mail and scan in only paper mail of importance for review.
Edit: will return with mail processor recommendations when not mobile.
Have a couple remote operations this would be useful for
[1] https://www.sbimailservice.com/ [2] https://myrvmail.com/
I feel like that must be relatively new. I swear I used that site and I'm pretty sure I didn't have to pay a fee.
I bet they added it to discourage people from going through with the process.
This is what the '$1 authorized charge' is for when you submit the address change/mail forwarding request.
Best $2 I have spent in my life.
But yeah, pre-approved credit card offers are gone, which is nice.
I recall reporting this to the USPS multiple times without any effect. The only thing that helped was putting a note inside my mailbox to check for my neighbor's mail.
Also as I recall, there was a coupon mailer that did not participate in the DMA. The flyers show up with branding from Vericast/Save/Valassis. The opt out for them is here: https://www.save.com/mailing/delivery-options
Similarly I recently moved houses and got a ton of catalogs to the former owner. It was a PITA to get sorted out, but after a couple months of diligent removal requests my mail is mostly stuff I care about.
Then this would be the organization's problem to keep their own lists up to date. I realize this is probably infeasible but it would be nice.
> I'm not sure what to do about it.
What I found to be particularly effective when dealing with spam from local businesses is to contact them directly and request that your information is deleted, while also posting that they engage in unscrupulous practices like sending junk mail on public review sites like Yelp and Google Reviews, and then finally filing a BBB complaint directly against the business.
I did get a larger mailbox, mostly for packages. And I still get a fairly high junk to organizations I do business with to actually important mail ratio. But I can mostly ignore my mailbox for a week at a time easily.
I've talked to my letter carriers, and it will get better for a few weeks and then be back to normal.
I'd say I get 3x the mail for previous resident than I do for myself. It's frustrating. Would be great if USPS just had a form I could fill out that automatically stopped delivery for certain names (and gave that info back to the mailers so they could stop generating the waste).
> The person who prepares this form states that he or she is the person, executor, guardian, authorized officer, or agent of the person for whom mail would be forwarded under this order. Anyone submitting false or inaccurate information on this form is subject to punishment by fine or imprisonment or both under Sections 2, 1001, 1702, and 1708 of Title 18, United States Code.
Is it just me, or is it insanely fucked up that in order to reduce the amount of junk mail you have to 1) first provide your information to yet another third-party site, and 2) pay money.
This is beyond backwards.
Instead, my approach whenever I receive junkmail is:
1) I write to the sender to request that all of my information be removed from their databases and that I did not consent to receiving any information from them.
2) I file a report with the Better Business Bureau: https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint
3) If they have a public-facing presence on a site like Google Reviews, Yelp, and so on, I leave a review detailing that this company sends out spam.
4) And most importantly, I keep a spreadsheet of companies that have sent me spam, and try to avoid ever giving them any of my money or labor.
Does it work for you? Do they stop, and is it worth the time?
Also, do you go through all four steps at the “first offense”? Rightly or not it’s considered business as usual to blanket a geographical area on occasion, so there are only a few places which are constant enough I’d actually consider myself vengeful instead of annoyed.
Actually, surprisingly yes! After doing the above for several years, I now get virtually zero junk mail (according to my spreadsheet, I've only received three pieces of junk mail so far this year).
And yes, I do it on the 'first offense' to nip it in the bud as soon as it starts.
Except this is not a blanket stance, but a very specific stance against the specific third-party in question: dmachoice.org, which states that they may use information they collect about you for digital advertising:
> Information gathered by cookies or similar technologies may be used for our business purposes such as analytics, research, digital advertising, and operational purposes. [1]
[1] https://www.dmachoice.org/static/privacy_policy.php
Sorry, but I'm not paying $2 to replace physical spam with digital spam.
Ah, the boomer/"greatest-generation" version of something like Angie's List. I used to believe in BBB too, until I realized it was just another middle-layer scam, sitting between businesses and consumers, with time-varying ideas over who should pay to either (a) get information (b) control information.
It beggars belief that Yelp has gotten away with it. I have heard from 4-5 restaurant owners the same story: it costs $300 to hide bad reviews. Those that don't pay start getting more bad reviews.
Is there documented evidence of this available? Emails with DKIM signatures, recorded conversations with representatives who can be confirmed to work for Yelp, official Yelp correspondence, etc? Basically anything that can actually make a solid case instead of just anecdotal evidence.
Random call, I am not sure if they followup. Suffice it to say, AFAIK no one has managed to record the shakedown calls.
FTC: pay this company no one but us know about $2 and it will fix the problem for 10 years in no legally binding way and with no government oversight penalty or enforcement.
Hell, maybe you hate the post office? Great way to punish it!
That’s when I realized, the post office actually makes money from doing this so they have zero incentive to stop.
Pick up the phone and ask them to put you on a do not call list. Surprisingly that works for some of these.
Pick up the phone and fuck with them. “911, what’s the location of your emergency” is my standard greeting no matter who calls me. Or tell them you are a Jehovah’s witness and as them if they’ve heard the good word.
Tell them this is a cell phone and your state allows up to $$$ per phone call if you take them to small claims. This usually works well with asking their full name and the name of their company and the name of their supervisor.
Want to get warranty for a horse carriage
Want to get warranty for a 1930s Model T
Want to get warranty for a future 2023 car
Want to speak to Kate when the person calling is Cathy. No no no I really want to speak to Kate.
Want to ask if they can call me at a specific time rather than random so that I know it is them
Max talk time has been 10 seconds. I wish I had the skills to prolong the call.
You could start by giving them more realistic car details.
I engaged them one time when I got really annoyed. Gave fake car details (but realistic), call back number of local McDonalds, and then kept asking for details about the coverage. I eventually declined it and the sales agent got super pushy with scare tactics so I hung up.
https://www.fcc.gov/spoofed-robocalls
> Caller ID authentication is critical for protecting consumers against spoofed robocalls where scammers mask their identity, harass consumers, and seek to defraud vulnerable communities. Caller ID authentication, based on so-called STIR/SHAKEN standards, provides a common information sharing language between networks to verify caller ID information which can be used by robocall blocking tools, FCC investigators, and by consumers trying to judge if an incoming call is likely legitimate or not. On June 30, 2021, the FCC confirmed that all the largest voice service providers had implemented these standards in the IP sections of their networks, in accordance with the FCC’s deadline. While some small carriers were afforded an extension of this deadline, Chairwoman Rosenworcel shortened the amount of time afforded to a subset of small voice service providers based on evidence that they were originating an increasing quantity of illegal robocalls. Thus, small voice service providers that are not facilities-based must implement STIR/SHAKEN in the IP portions of their networks no later than June 30, 2022.
That "small voice service providers" loophole is what's currently abused; a few of them have found being lax on spam detection means they can rake in fees for a while.
https://epic.org/documents/scam-robocalls-telecom-providers-...
> Every answered scam robocall pays money to those providers, as well as to every telephone service provider in the call path. Even when these providers are told—sometimes repeatedly—that they are transmitting fraudulent calls, they keep doing it, because they are making money from these calls.
For mobile turn on do not disturb with only contacts or favorite contacts allowed to breaktrough. Aggressively respond with a stop word to incoming texts - that eventually clears your number out of marketing databases.
They threatened to close all of my existing bank accounts if I couldn't provide a valid mailing address, and then made me verify it when I gave them the same address they already had.
I’d rather pay very slightly higher taxes to subsidize mail if necessary rather than having the USPS be self-sufficient as a spam expediting services for businesses.
honestly it takes me < a minute where I get to chill and see what's on offer. 1/100 times i might even not think of it as junk.
the problem with you people is you're
1) spoiled out of your minds 2) lazy as fuckkk
https://www.usps.com/manage/forward-premium.htm
USPS is like Facebook. They make more if they don’t allow premium opt outs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/07/08/how-the-p...
https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Refuse-unwanted-mail-and-remo...
Send it back to them. Make it their problem.
I wrote to the postmaster general. Nothing came of it.
My solution is like said above: return it to sender. If your post person is trying to keep it your problem, make it USPS' problem: when returning to sender put it in a postbox that your post person can't gate-keep.
I've personally had pretty good success with this, albeit it does require consistent effort for a while.
If they have a personal (outgoing) mailbox that they are putting just the one piece of mail into, the mail person can skim over it, see the marker, and make decisions.
If it's a post box that is filled with a bunch of people's outgoing mail, no postal worker is going to read over it that way. Further, if you've blacked out the 'to' address with a marker (as I do), and written 'Return to Sender', they then are faced with either returning it to sender...or treating it as a dead letter that is undeliverable. They won't do the latter if there is a sender they can return it to, ergo...back it goes.
I’m so sick of this.
“Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), Sect. 604.8.1.2 and Sect. 507.1.8.2 provide two instances where mail can be refused when it is offered for delivery, or, after delivery. You may mark “Refused” and return it unopened within a reasonable time.”
https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Refuse-unwanted-mail-and-remo...
Marketing mail for the USPS is $13.9 billion of their total revenue of $73.1 billion. (19% of total revenue).
The USPS could easily provide a form that let you opt out of all bulk marketing mail.
https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/2062562/junk-mail/
If you haven't seen other jokes on HN then consider the possibility that maybe you are overly aggressive in filtering out the human element from this collections of comments, posts & links and are markedly worse off for doing so.
They could charge more for it, and let it sort itself.
Let's get creative, folks.
https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/505.htm
> 1.3.8 Improper Use of Labels and Misuse of BRM Cards and Envelopes
> Improper use of BRM labels or misuse of BRM cards or envelopes should be handled as follows:
> When a BRM label is improperly used or a BRM card or envelope is misused as a label to return an unsealed item such as a brick, two-by-four, or similar item, the Postal Service may treat the item as waste to be disposed of at the discretion of the Post Office.
> When a BRM card or envelope is misused and affixed to a sealed item, the permit holder will be responsible for payment of the applicable Retail postage and per piece fee.
I think this is saying, "Attach it to a box with a brick in it." But neither do I think your local postal worker would be terribly amused.
Just send them their crap back with a "Please remove me from your list!" scrawled across the response. It does actually work, eventually...
After my mom passed I had all her mail forwarded to my house. She donated to a couple of charities, but they all sell their mailing lists to each other so there was so.much.charity.beg.crap with the little trinkets. And a lot of political donation stuff. The charities were pretty all right, honestly. I told them she was deceased and some even offered condolences and took her off. The political stuff, if there was a prepaid envelope inside I would return it with "deceased, pls remove" written on whatever silly survey they enclosed. So they would have to pay a small amount each time I had to tell them to remove her. That took about 2.5 years, but I no longer get anything.
You used to be able to opt-out, but not anymore:
1) opt out with the DMA (note: there used to be an opt-out form at http://www.dmachoice.org/eddm but it no longer exists)
2) each local advertiser has to download the list for your area of opted-out addresses and print them on a facing slip before handing their bulk flyers over to the USPS
3) the USPS has to pass that on to the mail carrier
4) mail carrier has to check the list before putting the (unaddressed) flyers in each mailbox
So many points of failure that you just know it was designed so that the opt-out would not be honored. Then they stopped pretending entirely by removing the form to opt-out a few years ago.
https://brave.com/usps-mailers/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31622128
https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/usps
What I do care about are those !@#$%^&* newsprint bulk ads that I get every few days.
I have allergies, and I play harmonica, so my hands are often close to my face.
If I just touch that stack of newsprint long enough to toss it in the recycle bin, my hands stink after that. I have to use a combination of soap and isopropyl to get even a fraction of the smell out.
I realize that the USPS makes money delivering those newsprint ads. Whatever they make, I would gladly pay twice that or more to never get one again.
Does anyone know if the DMAchoice thing would stop the newsprint ads? I have a feeling it wouldn't, but would be delighted to be wrong about this.
Are we encouraging them to send us more junk whatever, and then charge us more for their spareness? Is there really end of this game, if the rule is in their hands?
https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm
In any case after a few years I just toss their mail in the trash, junk or otherwise. If they don't care to file change of address forms then I don't care either. I don't think this is technically legal, though.
If it's not addressed to you at all then you should probably return it of course.
Recently I got one for my brother, who moved out a couple of years before I did.
I’m not sure what they do with all that mail that’s not addressed to me but I don’t really care. The point is I don’t have to see it.
This, along with the other tips in these comments (such as calling customer support lines and requesting removals) means I’m down to literally about one piece of junk mail per month these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXFgjQ9dZ8M&t=2m46s
For rural routes the carrier is supposed to put a card requesting the names of addresses when someone news moves in. I’m not sure what they do with this info but I think they can potentially do something with mail not addressed to your while casing their mail.
I overheard someone being told to put a card in the box about the issue and if that didn’t work to come back and they would enter a COA. But my own post office didn’t seem to know that option and just said to tape a paper on the box door saying “only deliver for X.”
My wife had the actually great idea to leave a pen in the mailbox for this purpose. It works really well.
“The website says”? How wonderful.
One cool free feature the USPS does offer is Informed Delivery [0]: Every morning around 7am I get an email from the postal service with scanned images of all the mail (face of the envelope) I'm receiving that day.
[0] https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.acti...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
Also in case you were thinking it, they don't open the boxes/letters. It's just the front of it
- one of the hijackers had received a knife through the mail, and it had been processed through that office, so there was extra scrutiny at the time
- a few years prior, that office processed and delivered a package the Unabomber sent that killed someone
https://www.mymove.com/about-us/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/12/postal-serv...
https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1992...
The USPS is expected to produce almost all of its own funds and has had most of its pre-1970 subsidies cut back or eliminated. At the same time, the prices it charges are still set by the federal government (specifically by the Postal Regulatory Commission, appointed by the President), meaning it can't truly set rates that allow it to be profitable[1]. The effect of all this essentially means it's forced to try and generate revenue elsewhere, like through these ads.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Reorganization_Act [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#R...
Not everyone; just those that use their services. Which seems like exactly the people that should be paying more if the services cost more.
P.O. Box 530200
Atlanta, GA
30353
> The following is a confirmation of your Opt-Out request.
> In order to complete your Permanent Opt-Out election, you must print and mail the Permanent Opt-Out Election form.
what was the fucking point of this
Edit: my opt-out was for 5 years. The "Permanent" opt-out requires mailing them.
lol
USPS is completely overrun by garbage mail.